


Ear of Newt

by larkspurblue



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Accidental confidante Newt, Anathema has the same psychic headache that Daphne has in Frasier, F/M, M/M, Matchmaker Anathema Device, Newt tries to bond with Crowley about plants, Outisder POV of Crowley/Aziraphale, background pining, but Anathema's is about Crowley and Aziraphale being in love, but very mild hijinks because Newt is not good at it, couple friends but one couple is an angel and a demon and also not formally together, in this house we appreciate Newton Pulsifer, newt gets kidnapped, schemes and hijinks, whenever Lilith flies into Seattle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27499435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkspurblue/pseuds/larkspurblue
Summary: Mr. R.P. Tyler of the Tadfield Neighborhood Watch was nosy.Little old ladies in knitting clubs were nosy.All of Anathema’s Tadfield neighbors were, in Anathema’s opinion, a little nosy. So was her mother, and definitely so was her grandmother.But Anathema did not think she herself was nosy.Until the day she had the strange beings whom she had once supposed to be two consenting cycle repairmen out to Jasmine Cottage for tea.Anathema wants her burning questions about the universe, and also the status of a certain angel and demon's romantic relationship, satisfactorily answered. Newt would rather stay out of it.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

Mr. R.P. Tyler of the Tadfield Neighborhood Watch was nosy.  
Little old ladies in knitting clubs were nosy.  
All of Anathema’s Tadfield neighbors were, in Anathema’s opinion, a little nosy. So was her mother, and definitely so was her grandmother.  
But Anathema did not think she herself was nosy.  
Until the day she had the strange beings whom she had once supposed to be two consenting cycle repairmen out to Jasmine Cottage for tea. They were not, she now knew, cycle repairmen. They were an angel and a demon, and they were sitting across from her, in white wicker chairs with cushions that the angel had called “charming”.

She supposed, when she really examined it, she had only invited them over because she wanted to grill them both on matters of Heaven, Hell, and the history of humankind. After the world hadn’t ended and the dust had settled, and life had gone back to normal, or maybe become a different kind of normal than the one she knew before, Anathema found herself flipping through the Nice and Accurate Prophecies - for nostalgia’s sake, more than anything else. All of the prophecies had already come true. Even the ones she and her ancestors had never quite figured out were things of the past now. The book had been a clock that had run out on a Saturday afternoon in late summer, and now it was a book of memories. But the book now carried a new harbinger: a small white card that must have been used as a bookmark, and which now fluttered to the ground and landed at Anathema’s feet. It was a business card advertising A.Z. Fell, purveyor of rare and antique books. Anathema frowned and dialed the number.  
A voice she recognized picked up and said abruptly, “I’m afraid we’re closed.” The voice implied quite definitely that it would be hanging up now, no further discussion necessary.  
“It’s me, Anathema Device,’ she blurted out. “I don’t know if you remember me. Um. Agnes Nutter’s… descendant. You hit me with your car.”  
“ _Crowley_ hit you with his car,” the voice corrected, sighing.

***

He had accepted her invitation to tea at Jasmine Cottage and now, they were sitting in her wicker chairs, looking astonishingly… normal. Crowley, with his sunglasses and his flash appearance certainly seemed out of place in a little place like Tadfield, but they both looked reasonably human. Even their auras, she thought, didn’t seem out of the ordinary.  
Unlike Crowley, Aziraphale looked like he was born for country cottage tea parties. He chatted pleasantly, helped himself to a second slice of cake, held his tea cup as if it were part of his hand.The demon sprawled in his chair and kept his dark glasses on even inside, and took his tea black and scarcely said a word. Anathema would have been convinced he’d had a terrible time and wished he hadn’t come, if he had not shaken her hand very pleasantly at the door at the end of the visit and said. “Thanks very much. Lovely garden.”  
When she first met them (does it count as meeting, really, when they’ve just hit you with their car, miraculously healed your bicycle and then accidentally stolen your prized family heirloom?), she had assumed them to be a couple. Later she had thought - of course, they weren’t a couple, just an angel and a demon forced to work together to save the world. Ethereal and occult beings, she supposed, didn’t do things like romantic relationships.  
And yet as she watched them sitting across from her, she had the strangest feeling. A psychic twinge, perhaps, although she didn’t consider herself to have any powers of precognition, just an occasional stinging insight into the truth of things. It came from a lifetime spent parsing the true prophecies of a nice and accurate ancestor. All the burning questions she had thought of for the occasion, about life, the universe, and Everything, momentarily flew out of her head as a new, extremely interesting one added itself to the pile:

 _So, what’s the deal with you two?_  
But of course, she didn’t ask.  
Newt came in halfway through their visit.  
“Do you remember Aziraphale? And Crowley?” Anathema asked him. “From the, uh -”  
Newton did remember, much to his dismay. He had done his best to just stick to the reality he was used to, and not the one where prophecies came true and the Antichrist was technically now his neighbor, and angels and demons were running around the earth.

This was the first tea time at Jasmine Cottage but certainly not the last. There were also tea times at Aziraphale’s bookshop in London, and once, a picnic with the Them. After a few months of such meetings, Anathema found that she considered them to be her friends. She was surprised, but not displeased.  
She had a few of her burning questions answered - finding out the Earth was a Libra changed _everything_ she had previously thought about the world but at the same time, made perfect sense.  
“What about the dinosaurs?” Newt had asked, half joking.  
Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged a look and burst out laughing.  
“Did I say something funny?” Newt asked, bewildered. But the angel and the demon could not be prevailed upon to give any further answer.  
Newt knew that Crowley and Aziraphale were Anathema’s friends, but he was not sure he could call them his. For one thing, Crowley seemed to personally and intensely dislike him. Every time Newt tried to talk to him, Crowley answered in monosyllables, or else in wordless noises that Newt was positive meant “go away, go away now, go away fast.”

“I think he’s just shy,” Anathema said, when Newt brought it up to her.  
“He’s a demon,” Newt argued.  
“Yes. And do you know for a fact that demons can’t be shy?”  
Newt frowned. Crowley was the only demon of his acquaintance and he did not care much for the idea of meeting a wider sampling.  
Aziraphale was much kinder to Newt. So kind it made Newt feel embarrassed. Aziraphale always addressed him as “Newton,” or “my boy,” and behaved as though everything Newt said was interesting, which Newt knew was not true.  
It had been months, and Anathema was no closer to having her last burning question answered.  
_So what’s the deal with you two?_

The deal, from what she could glean, was this:  
They didn’t live together, she had never once seen them touch, and they seemed to have very little in common.  
But on the other hand.  
They had 6000 years on earth in common, and seemed to orbit around each other in an easy dance, the steps of which they had been practicing since time began, and it showed in the way the angel passed the demon a glass of wine and Crowley took it without even looking. The way Crowley never finished a dessert and would always subtly push his plate an inch or two toward Aziraphale without comment. The way they bickered pleasantly, utterly without tension.  
Anathema saw everything in the way Aziraphale looked at Crowley when they were both drunk. And although Crowley kept his eyes hidden behind dark glasses, she saw everything in the way his head moved to follow Aziraphale as he moved through a room, and the way he sometimes said things he knew would rile Aziraphale up.  
The twinge Anathema had initially felt, signaling that there was definitely Something there had developed into a full-bodied psychic spasm. They were so metaphysically loud, it put her out of sorts sometimes. But she had the sense to know that if she mentioned it, they would get so embarrassed they might stop coming to tea, and even worse, might stop talking to each other.

“Why do you care so much?” Newt asked her one night after Crowley and Aziraphale had left. Tonight she had suffered particularly when Crowley and Aziraphale’s fingers brushed as they reached for a biscuit at the same time.  
Anathema tried to explain. “It’s like if you noticed someone had something on their face but they haven’t noticed yet. Only in this case, watching them continue to have something on their face and not notice gives you a splitting headache and they keep insisting there’s nothing on their face at all.”  
“But it’s none of our business,” Newt said, like a person who does not want it made his business.  
Anathema flung herself onto the couch and groaned into a pillow. “You wouldn’t say that if you could feel it the way I can,” she said miserably, and Newt patted her sympathetically.  
“But what can _we_ do?” he asked, like a person who does not think there is anything to be done, and what’s more, doesn’t want to do it.  
Anathema sat up. “If I could get one of them alone - to talk to me. Maybe it would come up.”  
“Hmm,” said Newt.  
“Will you help me?” Anathema turned to Newt pleadingly. “Will you take one of them aside next time while I talk to the other?”  
“I… suppose so,” Newt said uncomfortably. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for Anathema, but it was always with the looming knowledge that he was likely to fail.

***

Newt hoped it would be Aziraphale he’d have to distract. That would be easy. All he would have to do is ask the angel a question about a book, and Aziraphale would carry the conversation on his shoulders for a quarter of an hour. But in the proverbial game of life, Newt was destined to draw the short straw.  
“Newt, I bet Crowley would like to see what we’ve been doing in the garden,” Anathema said significantly.  
So Newt said, also significantly: “Oh! Right! Er… would you?”  
Crowley looked from Anathema to Newt to Aziraphale.  
“Go on,” Anathema said encouragingly, “Aziraphale will help me set everything out for tea.” Under her breath to Newt she said: “Just get me ten minutes. Can you do that?”  
“Absolutely,” Newt promised, with much more confidence than he felt.

“So these are, erm, marigolds, I think,” Newt pointed limply.  
“Zinnias,” said Crowley.  
“Sorry?”  
“Those are zinnias,’ Crowley said again, pointing at the yellow flowers.  
Newt flushed. “Ah.” He cast around for something else to show Crowley. The garden was not very big. “Anathema planted some lavender,” he said. “And some sage. She says burning it is cleansing. Helps get rid of evil spirits.”  
“Like me?” Crowley said.  
Newt gulped. Probably it was impolite to tell your guest about burning sage to protect against evil, when your guest was a demonic presence with a standing invitation to afternoon tea.  
‘Er,” Newt began.  
Crowley looked at him, coldly.  
“So, you like to garden?” Newt asked, forehead beaded with sweat in his sheer desperation to help Anathema in her mission.  
Crowley shrugged. “Gardening is digging about in dirt, pulling weeds, mucking about with hoes and rakes and things,” he said. It was the most he had ever said to Newt. “I keep plants.’  
“And that’s… different?”  
“No rakes,” said Crowley, as if that settled it.  
“Right,” said Newt.  
The conversation floundered after that.

“Did you get anything out of him?” Newt asked Anathema anxiously later.

Anathema had jumped on Aziraphale’s first mention of Crowley.  
“You two seem to care about each other an awful lot,” she had said encouragingly.  
“We’ve been friends a long time,” said Aziraphale. “And don’t tell him I said this,” he went on, leaning in to say in a dramatic whisper, “but he’s really very nice sometimes, for a demon.”  
Anathema tried again: “Maybe he’s nice to you because he likes you,” she suggested.  
Aziraphale missed her point entirely. “Tut,” he said. “It’s not just _me_. You should have heard the way he spoke to the man at the chip shop last week. It was positively _pleasant_. I certainly won’t let him live that down in a hurry.”  
But beyond this faint praise, Anathema could elicit no more from the angel on the subject of his more tender feelings for the demon.

“Not a thing,” she said with a grim sigh.

“Maybe he’s just a very private person,” said Newt. “Maybe you’d have more luck with Crowley.”  
Anathema seemed to ponder this. “I could get him drunk,” she sad.

***

“I’ll get more wine,” Aziraphale said, standing up and smiling. They were at the bookshop, the four of them.

Newt and Anathema had “been in the neighborhood” and stopped by for a nightcap. This was a bit of subterfuge on Newt and Anathema’s part. He was perfectly amenable to a London date night, and had even made reservations at a place that was certainly not the Ritz, but at the very least it was the sort of place you put on a tie for. But Anathema was so impatient to begin the true mission of the evening, she made Newt drive them straight to Azirapale’s place, without so much as an hors deurvres. _Was_ it still hors deurvres when it was just one, Newt wondered? Or was it hor deurvre. Like cul-de-sac and culs-de-sac. Or was it like sheep and sheep? His stomach growled in protest.

But his time had once again come: this time he was to distract Aziraphale, after Anathema had gotten Crowley good and drunk. By happy coincidence, the work had already been half done for her by the time they arrived. Crowley and Aziraphale were just about to open a second bottle of wine.  
“We’re not interrupting anything, are we?” Anathema asked innocently, without a hint of innuendo.

Newt didn’t like wine, much, but he had been rather enjoying some chocolate covered pretzels that had been lying out on the table, until Crowley gave him a terrifying glare, snatched the bowl out from under Newt’s hand, and offered it up to Aziraphale. When Aziraphale announced his intention of going for a third bottle. Anathema nodded pointedly at Newt, who shot up out of his chair.  
“Can I come?” he asked wildly. ‘Er. I’d like to learn more about… wine.”  
Aziraphale looked gratified. “Why, of course, my dear boy,” he said. “Come, come. I’ll show you my collection.”

It was _working_ , Newt thought. Loads better than last time! Aziraphale had given Newt a detailed profile of four of his personal favorite bottles when he turned to Newt and said, “Do you generally prefer red or white?”  
“I don’t know,” Newt confessed. “I really don’t know anything about wine at all.”  
“I see.” Aziraphale blew dust off a bottle and compared it to another. “So what brought on this sudden interest?”  
Newt thought fast. “Er - Anathema,” he said. “She’s my first real girlfriend,” he said, reddening. “I thought it might be nice to erm, impress her. Maybe for an anniversary present. Or a holiday.”  
“Oh, if it’s for _romancing_ ,” said Aziraphale, “then you’ll want champagne.” He waved to a shelf in the cupboard. “Pick one!”  
Newt’s brow furrowed. He picked one at random, because it looked particularly dusty, but when Aziraphale caught sight of the label he said hastily, “Ah - terribly sorry - not that one, though.”  
“Gosh, sorry,” said Newt. “I expect it’s awfully expensive.” Probably why it looked so old.  
“It’s not that,” said Aziraphale. “Between you and me, they’re all expensive. But you’re welcome to any of them. It’s just — this one,” Aziraphale turned a little pink. “I’m just saving this one for a special occasion is all.”  
Newt went back to inspecting the champagne selection, making sure to take his time.He finally straightened, holding a harmless looking bottle in his hands. Aziraphale was still staring wistfully at the bottle he had taken from Newt. He caught himself and put the bottle back on the shelf, carefully.  
“May I ask you a personal question, Newton?” he asked.  
Newt did not want particularly to be asked a personal question, to say nothing of answering one, but he said “Of course” and took a long sip from his wine glass.  
“How did you go about telling Miss Device… well, how you felt about her?”  
Newt frowned. And thought. And frowned harder. “I don’t think I ever did? It all just sort of… happened. Just the way Agnes said it would. And then we were just… together. And I tell her now, you know, that I… love her.” He blushed, and Aziraphale smiled warmly. “But I never had to…” he waved his hand around vaguely.  
“Woo her?” Aziraphale suggested.  
“Right,” agreed Newt. He wondered if this should bother him. He often had a nagging doubt that Anathema would have chosen him, if they had just met, without any prophecies or Armageddon. He was sure, given half a chance, he would have chosen her. She was pretty, and brilliant, and smelled really nice. And he knew in a roundabout way that Agnes hadn’t made Anathema’s choice for her, only knew she had made it. But in the end, thought Newt, was the choice really yours if someone told you that you were going to make it?  
Aziraphale sighed. “Sometimes I find myself wishing for a book that could tell me exactly what to do. At least concerning Certain Matters,” he added. “  
“That second Agnes book might have come in really handy after all,” Newt acknowledged.  
It took both of them a long moment to understand what it was he had just said.  
“Beg pardon, my boy?” Aziraphale was looking at him with a quizzical expression.  
Newton blinked twice. He was on his third glass - or was it his fourth - of the evening and he didn’t quite know what he was saying anymore, but he knew he probably shouldn’t be saying it, and that he didn’t know how to stop. “The second book of prophecies,” he said, “The one we burned.”  
It was Aziraphale’s turn to blink silently. “My dear Newton,” he said, and his voice was so quiet Newt almost didn’t hear him, over the blood pulsing in his ears. “I am afraid I must ask you to make yourself very clear. Do you mean to say that you and Miss Device had in your possession a second book of true prophecies by Agnes Nutter, presumably the only copy in the world since I certainly have never heard anything of it, and that you —” a terrible pause, “ _burned_ it?”

Newt spent the rest of the evening cowering by the cash register while Aziraphale and Anathema had a shouting match in the back room.  
“I was trying to break free,” Anathema shrieked in desperation. “I can’t just go - following fate around for the rest of my life. I have to live, at some point.”  
“Of all the selfish,” Aziraphale shouted, “Foolish — idiotic things I have ever heard! You took something of priceless value and - and - treated it as a metaphor for your self-actualization.”  
Newt winced. The way the angel spat out the words “self-actualization” made it sound like something vile.  
At some point, Crowley had skulked over. He had looked as bewildered as Newt at first, but now he only scowled. Newt swallowed. He didn’t know Crowley well, but he was beginning to understand that the demon was er - protective, of the angel. And it stood to reason that something that made Aziraphale angry, would make Crowley very, very angry. And certainly that anger would be directed at the person who - Newt recalled with a wince - had sort of recommended in the first place, the thing that was making Aziraphale so very angry right now, with the whole encouraging-his-girlfriend-not-to-be-just-an-ancestor-anymore. And Aziraphale’s shouting was one thing, but Crowley was a demon. And just because Newt had never seen him actually hurt anybody, it didn’t mean that he hadn’t, or wouldn’t. Especially right now, with Aziraphale so distracted. Newt backed even further into his corner, not quite cowering, but it was a near thing.  
In all the confusion, Newt had forgotten completely about Anathema’s mission. When he and Aziraphale had re-entered the room - Aziraphale in a blaze of wrath, and Newt wobbling miserably behind him - Crowley and Anathema had been whooping and leaping about in some kind of frenetic dance. Crowley had taken his glasses off, and Anathema had looked flushed and triumphant and happy (and really extremely pretty, thought Newt, though it wasn’t the time or the place, but gosh) and then she had caught sight of Aziraphale’s face.  
“I’m, er, really sorry about this,” Newt said to Crowley.  
Crowley looked over at him. At least, Newt assumed he was looking. Crowley had put his glasses back on once Aziraphale and Anathema started shouting. He said nothing.  
“I feel really badly about it all,” Newt’s mouth went on, against the better judgment of his brain. _What are you doing?_ he asked himself. _Don’t let him know it’s all your fault._ “I had no idea he would - not that he’s - I mean I wasn’t —” Oh dear.  
“I think you’d better drive Miss Device home now,” said Crowley, and his tone was icy.  
“Oh,” said Newt. “I guess so.” He blinked and patted his jacket pocket in a vague sort of way, feeling the lump of Dick Turpin’s keys. “Hang on - I can’t,” he cried. “Too drunk! I’m much _much_ \- had _much_ too much to drink.”  
He looked to the demon in utter helplessness, and Crowley sighed. “Never mind that. You’ll find yourself just sober enough to get you both to Tadfield alive.” His voice was not kind by any means, but his words had a calming effect, and Newt found that he did feel clearer-minded by the time he’d finished speaking.  
“Oh,” said Newt again, a bit doubtfully. “Thank —”  
But Crowley was already charging onto the battlefield, taking Aziraphale gently by the arm, saying “angel,” in a steady voice, and when Newt blinked again, Crowley was holding a mug with an angel’s wing for a handle, filled with hot cocoa, and was bullying a still-furious angel into sitting down and drinking it.  
Crowley gave Anathema a Look. Anathema was no fool. She grasped her chanced and edged silently out of the room and into the entryway, where Newt grasped her hand and they made their escape.

***

There was a long and awkward silence between them on the drive back to Tadfield. Newt had apologized in about eleven different ways, and Anathema had finally shouted at him to stop apologizing, and then Newt had apologized for apologizing so much.  
“So,” he said. “Did you manage to get anything out of Crowley?”  
“What?” Anathema said. “Oh. Oh, that. No.” She twisted in the passenger seat so she was facing Newt, her cheek pressed against the back of the seat. “He didn’t talk about Aziraphale at all. And the problem with getting someone else drunk is you have to keep drinking too. Kept forgetting about the mission,” she said, and yawned.  
“What were the two of you doing when we came back?” he asked. “It looked like you were dancing.”  
“He was teaching me a ritual to call for ethereal or occult aid. All I have to do is howl like a wolf, cluck like a chicken, and bark like a dog, while doing hopscotch and spinning in a cir - and _oh_ , none of that’s real, is it?”  
Newt reached for her hand. “I’m sure if you hadn’t been so drunk you’d have realized sooner,” he said encouragingly.  
Anathema sighed. “I guess that’s it, then. No more weird supernatural acquaintances to have over for tea. We’ve just got to make do with regular humans now.” She gave Newt a small smile. Truthfully, Newt felt a bit relieved at the idea. He would be perfectly happy to only associate with boring humans who wouldn’t tell you things about dead kings of England that you really couldn’t unhear.  
“I’m sure if you call Aziraphale tomorrow, he’ll have calmed down,” Newt said.  
Anathema humphed doubtfully. “We’re lucky Aziraphale didn’t smite me on the spot - I don’t know what exactly smiting involves but it sounds pretty permanent to me.”  
“Well,” said Newt, “at least now you won’t have to look at them while they have metaphysical something-or-other on their face.”  
Anathema sighed. “It’s a shame we couldn’t get them to talk about their feelings.”  
A memory half-submerged in the swampy mire of the strange evening bobbed to the surface of Newt’s mind and he frowned. Was it something Aziraphale had said? Or was it something he didn’t say? Newt couldn’t remember, he only remembered the way Aziraphale had cradled the dusty wine bottle, looking sad. After that he only remembered the shouting.  
Into the silent car, Anathema said, “It was my book, anyway.” A parting defense delivered to an imaginary adversary. Newt patted her hand.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: It's important and healthy to hang out with people who are not your significant other, but maybe don't kidnap them!

For a few weeks, it looked like Anathema was right, and that their association with the only angel who ever gave an antichrist a Christmas present (a very lumpy scarf, handmade) was at its end. And by extension, naturally, so was any contact with the only demon ever known to wear an equally lumpy set of red earmuffs. It came as something of a shock, then, the next time Newt came face to face with a familiar vintage black Bentley.   
Newt had been sent to the little Tadfield market with a list of ingredients for soup. Anathema was not much for cooking but she did like to make soup. Newt privately supposed it must be the witch blood in her. Stirring things into pots seemed to come with the territory. He had only just emerged from the shop, carrying his brown paper bag, and before he had even got out his keys to begin fumbling with the lock on Dick Turpin, he noticed the black car, and the unmistakable head of red hair leaning out of it.   
“You!” Newt exclaimed.   
“Get in the car,” Crowley shouted, by way of greeting. That was fair, Newt considered, since his own greeting had hardly been what you’d call polite.   
Newt blinked. “What?”   
“Get in the car,” Crowley said in reply, leaning farther out of the window, and this time adding a little beep on the car horn.   
At the risk of seeming repetitive, Newt blinked again. “Why?”   
Crowley groaned. “Look, I haven’t got all day. I suggest you stop making things difficult and just get in the car.”   
Newt was still confused, but he did not wait to be told a fourth time. Perhaps it would be alright, he thought. Perhaps Crowley and Aziraphale had dropped by Jasmine Cottage to patch things up with Anathema, who might be wondering about the things for the soup, and Crowley was just here to hasten Newt’s return home. He closed the Bentley’s passenger door carefully and settled his bag of groceries on his lap.   
“Erm -” he began, but before he could continue, Crowley accelerated, Newt was thrown back in his seat, and they were flying through Tadfield Square.   
“Ah,” Newt said weakly, as they passed the turn-off for Jasmine Cottage.   
“Oh -” he murmured feverishly as they merged onto the highway.   
So he was not being driven home, then. And he was all alone in a car, with a demon, moving at considerable speed toward an unknown destination.   
Newt hugged the bag of groceries to his chest and prayed.

Queen was playing over the car speakers. Newt could not place the song but he recognized the man’s voice and the wailing guitars. Crowley had not said a single word to him since he shouted at him to get in the car, and Newt got the idea that he wasn’t a particularly chatty driver. After a while, Newt finally got up the courage to ask:   
“Where’s Aziraphale?” He still had a wild hope that Aziraphale was somehow involved in whatever was happening to him. And while the angel sometimes made Newt nervous, Newt couldn’t help but feel certain that Aziraphale would never actually let him come to harm. If Aziraphale was around, then Newt knew he was safe. Then Newt remembered the burned-book incident with a sinking stomach. Perhaps angels were capable of exacting revenge after all. _Perhaps_ , because Aziraphale was an angel, he had delegated his revenge plans to Crowley, who had probably invented revenge.   
“Bookshop,” said Crowley.   
“Is that where we’re going?” Newt asked. Beads of sweat were beginning to form in upsetting places. On his upper lip, for one, and his temples, and on the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses, which made them slide off his face. He pushed them back up again.   
“Nope,” said Crowley.   
“Oh,” said Newt. “Erm, sorry, but are you taking me to Hell?”   
Crowley looked over at him and Newt thought, with a sense of relief, that he seemed surprised at the question. “Why would I do that?” he asked.  
“Er, I don’t know. Just. You’re a demon and you’ve just - sort of - kidnapped me.”   
Crowley scoffed and looked back at the road. “We’re not going to Hell,” he said.   
Newt supposed this ought to be comforting. 

Crowley drove them to London, to Newt’s continued bafflement and concern. He followed wordlessly as the demon parked and led him on foot up to a building bright with lights. There was a very dark alley next to the building, perhaps Crowley was going to yank him down it and torture him? Wasn’t that what demons did? Newt knew, if he just calmed down and thought this out rationally, that Crowley really didn’t seem like the torturing type, and that these lurid visions of hypothetical revenge situations were completely unrealistic, and that whatever Crowley did to him couldn’t be half as bad as the nail-biting, stomach-churning Not Knowing that Newt was currently experiencing.   
But he stopped short, face still sweating unpleasantly. He had left his groceries in the Bentley and thought distantly about Anathema, about whether he would ever see her again, and whether she would always remember the soup that might have been when she thought of him.   
Crowley turned and saw him standing on the sidewalk. “Are you coming in or not?” he asked. Newt looked up at the signs on the building, taking them in for the first time.   
“A cinema,” he gasped out at last.   
Crowley waited.   
“You brought me to a cinema.” Newt’s mouth hung open. “But - why?”   
Crowley stared at him as if in disbelief. “To walk a dog. Why do you think? I wanted to see a film.”   
Newt stared. “With me?”   
Crowley scoffed. “No, not - I didn’t want to see a film _with you_ , I just wanted to watch a—” Crowley shifted his weight from one foot to the other and said, “Aziraphale doesn’t always appreciate films. I thought you might. It’s not - I’m not being _nice_. Like you said. I kidnapped you.”   
“To see a film,” Newt said. Just to be sure.   
“Yes,” said Crowley, scowling. “To see a film.”   
“Er,” said Newt. “Alright, then. Erm. What are we seeing?”

It was a James Bond film, as it turned out, and after about 40 minutes, Newt’s spine uncurled and his jaw unclenched and he found himself having a reasonably nice time. Every now and then he glanced over at Crowley, who was still wearing his sunglasses and his his chin in one hand, but seemed to be enjoying himself as much as Newt had ever seen. 

By the time they surfaced from the darkened theatre into the London evening air again, Newt felt almost relaxed. So when Crowley nodded his head towards a bar across the street, Newt agreed readily. It was strange, thought Newt. He had never known Crowley to be this affable. Although, of course, he hadn’t really said much, and what little he said hadn’t been what you might call _friendly_ , but… strange as it might seem, Newt had the distinct impression that he and Crowley were _hanging out_. Socially! It was… weird, Newt decided. Very weird. But Crowley had paid for the tickets so who was he to complain? 

“We should do this more often,” Newt said. He was drunk, which was the only reason he said it.   
“What, drink?” said Crowley.   
Newt laughed loud and hard, and Crowley joined in.  
“Yes,” Newt finally gasped, red-faced. “Exactly.” 

Newt wasn’t sure how many drinks he’d had, but if he had to guess, he would say it was however many made you ask a demon “what’s Hell like, anyway?”   
Because that was what Newt had done.   
“Bit like what you’d expect, I suppose,” said Crowley. “Hot, crowded. Lousy company, odd smells.”  
“Sounds a bit like this bar,” joked Newt.   
“No,” said Crowley fervently. “This bar is _great._ ” He downed his drink and signaled to the barkeep for another. Whatever number of drinks Newt was on, Crowley had surely surpassed. _“Earth’s_ great. Humans —” Crowley turned toward Newt and clasped his shoulder. His sunglasses had slipped down his nose just a little and Newt got a good look at his eyes for the first time and swallowed, feeling himself sober up a tiny bit at the shock of it. “ _Humans_ are great,” Crowley was saying. And as if the eyes weren’t enough, that statement reminded Newt that he wasn’t hanging out with just a normal bloke who liked James Bond. Crowley was a demon. Crowley _wasn’t human_ , and how was Newt supposed to respond to anything he said? How was he supposed to keep up his side of the conversation when Crowley probably saw him as a bug pinned to a piece of cardboard. A single, small example of a generally interesting species, but not personally very exciting at all.   
Newt’s drunkenness had slipped from euphoric to maudlin in all of 20 seconds, and he felt himself grow suddenly heavy and sleepy. The sounds of the bar and of Crowley continuing to speak enthusiastically about human achievements blurred together. Finally he blinked and tried to drag his consciousness back to the bar again, unsure how long he’d been staring into the middle distance, having an existential crisis. Crowley was still talking.   
“And it’s been 6000 years, you’d think I’d have some idea of how to start the conversation,” Crowley was saying.  
“Mmm,” said Newt.   
“He’s my best friend, do you know what I mean?” Crowley said.   
“Absolutely,” said Newt.   
“So I should be able to talk to him about anything, but it’s weird because we’ve never talked about it before. And I guess I just don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want to, or if he doesn’t know how to talk about it either. But then if neither of us ever tries to talk about it, nothing will ever happen. Unless - does he want me to say something first?”   
Crowley looked at Newt, who lifted an arm in a vague “who knows?” gesture, and then the demon went on:   
“ _Or_ does he want to go on not talking about it because it’s always worked for us in the past? And he - he’s an _angel_. You know?”   
Newt nodded uncertainly.   
“He ought to be better than I am at talking about feelings, and things. He told me - oh Someone - he told me,” Crowley’s voice cracked and Newt blinked in alarm. “He told me that he _enjoyed my company_.” Crowley looked at Newt as though he required some kind of response this time.   
Newt was confused, but game. “Wow,” he said, and that must have been the right thing to say because Crowley nodded in enthusiastic agreement.   
“I know! I know - very wow - I was - it was - wow! Of course I didn’t say anything back. Demon, yeah? Can’t go around saying nice things like that, all the time. Can’t _say_ them” Crowley added, significantly. “But who’s going to know? Why shouldn’t I say things?”   
“Right,” said Newt. He sipped on a water glass that was on the table and tried to concentrate, but this was the most he had ever heard Crowley speak, and he was processing a lot of information for which he had very little context.   
“Why shouldn’t I say - Aziraphale,” Crowley said, sweeping a hand out in front of him in a dramatic gesture. “Aziraphale, I’ve been in love with you for thousands of years.”   
Newt spat out the water. _Oh_ , he thought. _It’s happening.  
_ “I’ve been in love with you for thousands of years,” said Crowley to his imaginary Aziraphale, “Maybe it’s time we did something about it.”   
“Gosh,” said Newt, “That’s good. Why don’t you do it?”   
Crowley groaned and grabbed handfuls of red hair. “I don’t know!” he cried. “Why can’t I just say it? I can say it to _you_ ,” he said, looking accusatory. “But every time I think about saying it to _him_ , my tongue gets all - nehhhh.”  
“Nehhh?” Newt repeated.   
“Exactly,” said Crowley with a sigh.   
“What would you do about it, if you could?” Newt said after a silence, and Crowley looked at him, confused. “I mean, you said… ‘maybe it’s time we did something about it,’” Newt quoted. “What is it you want to do about it? Maybe you could just do that first, instead of the talking.”   
Crowley stared at Newt and narrowed his eyes.   
“I mean. That’s probably a terrible idea. Sorry I said anything,” said Newt nervously.   
“No,” said Crowley. “That’s good. I like it. I just… hadn’t thought that far ahead.”   
“Oh, surely you’ve thought about it a little,” said Newt. “After all these years? What do you think comes after the bit where you talk about it? You’ve had to have had some ideas about what happens next. Fantasies, you know.”   
Now it was Crowley’s turn to suddenly sober up a few degrees. “That is _disgusting_ , Pulsifer,” he hissed in scandalized outrage. “I am _not_ having this conversation with you and if you —”   
“Oh God!” Newt cried in genuine dismay. Crowley flinched. “Sorry,” said Newt, “I didn’t mean it like that at all.” Crowley looked slightly mollified. “At _all_ ,” Newt said again. “I just mean. If I’m understanding this correctly. You’d like to… be… closer to Aziraphale. Emotionally,” he clarified before Crowley could get defensive again. “Surely you have some idea of what that looks like to you.”   
Crowley stared into a whiskey glass for a few long moments and Newt waited. When it seemed clear that Crowley was not going to speak again, Newt told him: “Look, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me what you’ve thought about. It’s not my business. And it’s not,” he cleared his throat and nodded at the floor “ _Their_ business. Or _theirs_ ,” he added with an eyebrow raised to the ceiling. “But if it’s anyone’s business, it’s his.”   
Crowley pointedly ignored what Newt thought was some of the better advice he’d ever given, and stood up. “Come on,” he said. “Suppose I should take you back to Tadfield.”   
Newt started. “The soup!” he cried. “I forgot all about it. What time is it?” He reached frantically for his mobile, which he had turned off during the film. There was text message after text message from Anathema, and several missed calls.   
As if on cue, Crowley’s own phone began ringing from his pocket.   
“Angel,” he said, turning away from Newt slightly to answer it. “Yeah, he’s right here. Sure, I’ll put him on.” He handed the phone to Newt. “For you,” he said.   
Newt put the phone to his ear. “Newt?” It was not Aziraphale’s voice anymore, but Anathema’s, frantic with relief. “Newt, you’re alright?”   
“Yes - I’m alright,” said Newt, dazed. “Anathema, I’m so sorry, I forgot all about the soup.”   
“I’m not worried about the soup,” she said, an edge of hysteria in her tone. “I thought you’d been murdered - or kidnapped. You’ve been with Crowley this whole time? What were you even doing?”   
“We just - saw a film. Where are you?” Newt asked.   
“I’m at the bookshop - Aziraphale’s shop. I didn’t know where else to go, and —”   
Crowley started walking and Newt hurried to follow him. “Er - we’re on our way. I think.”   
  


Anathema was standing anxiously in the doorway, lit from behind by the soft lamplight of the bookshop’s interior. Newt stumbled out of the Bentley toward her and Anathema flung herself at him full force, as if they’d been separated for months instead of only a few hours.   
After a few moments of blissful reunion, Anathema pulled away. “We are getting you a new car,” she said, and Newt furrowed his brow.   
“What?”   
“When you didn’t come home, I went looking for you and found that stupid car of yours in front of the market. I drove it all the way here from Tadfield, and I’ve decided. We are buying you a new car. Tomorrow. That thing is a deathtrap.”   
Newt’s heart surged with inexplicable loyalty for Dick Turpin, but they could argue about it later. Anathema was rounding on Crowley.   
“You!” she said, and Crowley looked around, possibly for an escape. “You can’t just go around _kidnapping_ people. Do you know how worried I was?”   
“He was fine,” Crowley protested. “He was with me the whole time.”   
“That’s why I was worried!” shouted Anathema.   
“Thought you were worried because you didn’t know where he was.”   
“ _I didn’t know where he was because you kidnapped him_.”   
“We were _seeing a film_.”   
“THAT’S NOT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON FOR KIDNAPPING.”  
“Well, he wasn’t complaining! I’d have taken him back if he asked,” said Crowley, and Newt felt a bit foolish, realizing this was probably true. He had sat immobilized in terror, but he hadn’t once considered simply asking the demon to drive him back to Tadfield. He also hadn’t thought to call Anathema up and let her know where he was. In many ways, he thought, this whole debacle had been as much his fault as it had been Crowley’s.   
“We might have had _plans_ ,” Anathema was saying. “Ever heard of a telephone? Of calling people up and asking if they’re free before you decide to whisk them away without telling a soul?”   
Newt thought perhaps he’d better defuse the situation. After all, he felt he owed Crowley a certain something after their evening. They had sort of bonded, in a way. He cleared his throat. “How did you know I was in London?” he asked Anathema.   
“I didn’t,” she said. “I just -”   
Aziraphale stepped forward. “Miss Device thought perhaps she might be in need of a miracle,” he said. “So she came to me.”   
“So you two have patched things up, then?” Newt asked, putting an arm around Anathema’s shoulders.   
Anathema hesitated, but Aziraphale smiled. “All is forgiven, my dear. What kind of angel would I be if I can’t show mercy towards wrong-doers?”   
Newt thought he saw Crowley roll his eyes and Anathema smiled a frosty smile. “Okay,” she said, “I just think it’s maybe a bit much to call me a ‘wrong-doer’ when all I really did was destroy a piece of private property that I _owned_ —”   
“The gift of Knowledge is not something that can be owned by an individual, my dear girl —”   
“Technically,” said Newt, feeling brave, “I did talk her into it. Convinced her, you know. To burn the book. So really it’s me you should be angry with.”   
“I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, Newton,” said Aziraphale kindly, “But I really wouldn’t have expected you to know any better. Miss Device, on the other hand—”   
“Your boyfriend kidnapped my boyfriend,” Anathema interrupted. “So maybe we can call it even.” She grabbed Newt by the arm and began hauling him by his sleeve to Dick Turpin.   
Newt dragged his feet a little and turned back toward the bookshop.   
“We’d love to have you to tea,” he blurted out.   
“Newton!” Anathema hissed between gritted teeth.   
“Next Sunday,” Newt said doggedly. “If you’d like.”   
Aziraphale frowned but Crowley looked amused. “Maybe we’ll see you then,” the demon said. 

“I don’t want to serve them tea,” Anathema said once they were in the car.   
“I’ll serve the tea,” said Newt. He ran a hand over his face. He was mostly sober now. Nearly mostly sober, anyway. “Anathema - listen. Crowley _told_ me things.”   
Anathema was struggling to get Dick Turpin onto the road. “What kind of things?”   
“Things about _feelings_. And Aziraphale”   
Anathema looked at him, a gleam in her eye. “How very interesting,” she said.   
“And Aziraphale’s got to feel the same way, right?”   
“That’s what I’ve been saying!”   
“And they’ve just been circling around each other for 6000 years,” said Newt. “Not saying anything. Pretending they don’t like each other. It’s sad, when you really think about it.”   
“It’s silly, is what it is,” said Anathema. “They only have themselves to blame if they’re sad. What’s keeping them from each other now?”   
“They just need to talk to each other,” said Newt. “Like we do. I love you. See? How hard is that? Anathema, I love you.” He sighed blearily and closed his eyes. He felt a gentle pressure on his hand, and he curled his around hers. “But then, I guess we had help from Agnes. Didn’t we?”   
Anathema squeezed his hand with a force so sudden and intense that Newt opened his eyes and jolted upright.   
“Newt,” she said. “I have an idea.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really thought I would be able to wrap this up in two chapters total. I suppose I underestimated my outline - a tale as old as time! One more chapter ought to do it.


End file.
